Baltimore City police are glad 2012 is over after recording more than 200 homicides.

Advertisement

According to police officials, there were 217 murders in the city in 2012, 20 more than the 197 recorded in 2011.

The increase stands out when compared to the closest major city, Washington, D.C., which saw its homicide rate drop by more than 18 percent. Baltimore's homicides increased by 10 percent, statistics showed.

D.C. recorded 88 homicides in 2012, the lowest number there in 50 years.

Baltimore police Commissioner Anthony Batts said he blames two rival gangs for the spike in deadly crime.

"The only reason we have a spike that took place in our homicides overall this year is because we had two individual cases of gang violence that took place. We should have clicked to it faster, but it took us a couple of months to catch up. One sparked in June and another in August, and they both went into late October and November," Batts said. "If we had caught those two, we would have been under the number we had the last year."

Baltimore's homicide rate is now 35 per every 100,000 residents compared to 14 per every 100,000 in D.C., which is a much more populated city.